Field of the Disclosure
This disclosure relates generally to automated vehicle analysis systems for grading and analyzing used vehicles.
Description of the Related Art
Buying a car can often be a difficult proposition. It is typically one of the more expensive purchases that people make. There are many different cars available, each having slightly different features, and prospective purchasers have numerous factors to take into account. The car buying process is often only exacerbated when purchasing a used car. There are few standards available to determine the quality of used cars and to determine whether the price is reasonable. It is therefore often difficult to accurately compare different used cars, both between two or more cars having similar or identical make, model, and year as well as among all used cars.
One information source that attempts to classify the relative values of cars is the Kelley Blue Book®. This guide attempts to give approximate pricing values to used cars based on their make, model, year, and some other features. This can often be an imprecise guide, however, because the condition of the vehicle is often estimated and specific occurrences in the life of a given vehicle are not taken into account.
Vehicle history reports can be used to determine more precise information about a specific vehicle, but often these reports provide a wealth of data without providing an overall picture of what that data means. Comparisons of multiple vehicle history reports can be a time-consuming process—the wealth of data may necessitate time to do a line-by-line comparison and may be difficult to even judge just how different line-items affect the quality or term of life of the different cars.